Big Red Summer Camps Can Help Students Find Career Path

May 9, 2014

LINCOLN, Neb. — When high school students attend University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension Big Red Summer Camps, they may just be embarking on their career path.

The Big Red Summer Camps, offered each year at UNL, did just that for Elizabeth Baquet.

Baquet attended the Big Red Filmmaking Camp two summers in a row before deciding to attend UNL and major in theatre arts with a film and new media emphasis. After graduating in 2012, Baquet moved to Los Angeles and now works for a web, film and TV production company called Funny or Die.

Baquet attended the camp after a recommendation from her dad and said her interest in films grew out of seeing ones that she found "really fascinating and different" from anything she'd seen before.

"My mom would take me to see films at The Ross which were always introducing me to new people and places I'd never known about before," she said. "After awhile I started to realize that the names of people shown in the credits were ones who helped in making the film and I decided that's what I wanted to be a part of."

Baquet, a Lincoln East High School graduate, said the camps helped her to choose UNL over other schools because of the immediate access to filmmaking equipment as a freshman.

"The program covers all aspects of filmmaking so you can begin to see where your interests might lie," she said. "I really enjoyed working as a producer and organizing shoots for fellow classmates so that's where much of my work in college was focused."

During her time at UNL, she spent two summers in Los Angeles interning for production companies and gaining more hands-on experience with the film industry.

Baquet is the assistant to the vice president of production and also works as an associate producer on many of the Funny or Die's television shows. Funny or Die was founded by actor Will Ferrell as a comedy website and has since grown into film and television production. The company has programs airing on networks such as Comedy Central, Discovery and the Fuse Network.

Baquet said the day-to-day of her job is managing schedules and helping with prep for the company's productions. In addition, she helps with producing many of the videos on the company's website at http://www.funnyordie.com/.

"The film camp is popular each year. We have youth apply from around the country to be part of the camp," said Shane Potter, assistant extension educator in 4-H youth development. "The camp is popular because students work with UNL film studies program professors who are also big name producers."

The 2014 Big Red Summer Camps are June 8-13. In addition to the filmmaking camp, students can choose from camps focused on animal science, crop sciences, culinary arts and food science, education, engineering, fashion design, Outdoor Nebraska, Unicameral youth legislature and veterinary science.

Outdoor Nebraska is a new camp offered this year, Potter said.

Working with UNL's School of Natural Resources, the camp gives the understanding of what it would be like to have a career in that area, such as working with game and parks, biology or wildlife management, he said.

"It is a nice sample of many of the programs offered by the School of Natural Resources," Potter said. "We try to offer new camps each year to fit students interests."

For more information about the camps, visit http://4h.unl.edu/4hcamps/bigredcamps. Registration is still available until May 15.

4-H and UNL Extension are in the Institute of Agriculture and Natural Resources at UNL.